The Broadway Group destroyed a wetland to build a Dollar General store

A developer took bulldozers to a living, federally protected wetland connected to an Alabama river system, filled it with dirt and debris, and the total price tag the federal government handed them for destroying it was $30,000 — roughly what a Dollar General store earns in a slow week.

A Wetland Was Here. Now There’s a Parking Lot.

The Broadway Group, LLC is a limited liability corporation formed under Alabama law. Its registered member is Robert M. Broadway, based out of Huntsville, Alabama. The company develops retail properties, and in early 2022, it targeted a parcel at 35 Cook Springs Road in Pell City, St. Clair County, Alabama, for a new Dollar General store.

The problem: that parcel contained 1.265 acres of jurisdictional wetlands with a continuous surface water connection to Cane Creek, which flows into Kelly Creek, which flows into the Coosa River — a traditional navigable water of the United States. Under Section 301(a) and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, you cannot fill wetlands like these without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Broadway Group never applied for one before they started digging.

Starting on or around March 20, 2022, the company’s contractors rolled in with backhoes, bulldozers, and dump trucks and began discharging dredged and fill material directly into those wetlands. They were building a retail store, a parking lot, ingress and egress roads, and utilities. The work continued until April 15, 2022.

Caught in the Act, Then Allowed to Finish

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted an inspection on April 12, 2022 — while construction was still happening — and documented the unauthorized discharge of fill material into federal waters. Three days later, on April 15, 2022, USACE issued a Notice of Violation to The Broadway Group, formally putting them on notice that they had broken federal law.

The company’s response to getting caught was to direct its contractor to “stabilize the site.” The fill material is still in the wetland. As of the date of the consent agreement, the unauthorized dredged and fill material remains in waters of the United States — the document states this directly.

On November 1, 2022, The Broadway Group submitted what is called an “after-the-fact” permit application to the USACE — essentially asking for permission retroactively for something they had already done. The EPA took over as the lead enforcement agency in December 2022 after reviewing the public notice of that application.

What a Dollar Amount Cannot Measure

They Buried a Living Ecosystem Under a Parking Lot

Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They filter water. They absorb flood surges. They trap carbon. They shelter species that exist nowhere else. The 1.265 acres of wetlands that The Broadway Group filled with dirt and debris were connected, through Cane Creek and Kelly Creek, to the Coosa River — a waterway that runs through the heart of Alabama and feeds communities across the state.

When a developer fills a wetland, the water doesn’t disappear — it moves. It moves into neighboring properties, into roads, into people’s basements. The natural sponge that was absorbing storm runoff on that parcel in Cook Springs no longer exists. In its place stands a Dollar General store and a parking lot. That is a permanent trade. No fine reverses it.

The federal government defines wetlands as areas “inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support…a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.” What that legal language describes is a thriving, biologically complex community of plants, insects, birds, amphibians, and microorganisms. The Broadway Group’s contractors plowed all of it under without asking permission.

The Community Around Cook Springs Got No Say

Cook Springs is a small community in St. Clair County, Alabama. It is not a place with lobbyists in Washington. It is not a place whose residents have legal teams on retainer. When a development company decides to fill a wetland near their homes and connect it to a local creek, the community downstream absorbs the consequences. No one in Cook Springs was consulted before the bulldozers arrived. The public notice process happened only after the damage was already done.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management was brought in, alongside the USACE, to issue a joint public notice on the company’s after-the-fact permit application in November 2022. That notice existed so the public could comment on whether a developer should be retroactively allowed to keep fill material in federal waters. The people of Cook Springs were handed a comment period, not a choice.

The consent agreement itself notes that the unauthorized fill material “currently remains in waters of the United States.” This is not a past-tense violation that has been cleaned up. The wetland is still buried. The $30,000 fine (roughly what it costs to replace the gutters and roof on a single modest home) settled the federal enforcement action. The wetland did not get a settlement. The creek downstream did not get a settlement. The ecosystem services lost — flood protection, water filtration, wildlife habitat — have no line item in this document.

Accountability That Lets Them Walk Away Clean

Robert M. Broadway, the listed member of The Broadway Group, LLC, signed this consent agreement from a Huntsville, Alabama P.O. Box. The company “neither admits nor denies” the factual allegations in the document — the standard legal shield corporations use to absorb penalties without accepting public accountability for what they did. The Broadway Group gets to tell every future business partner, every future financier, and every future municipality that they settled an administrative EPA matter without any finding of wrongdoing on the record.

Meanwhile, federal law under the Clean Water Act treats each day that unauthorized fill material remains in federal waters as a separate daily violation. The fill went in March through April 2022. The order was signed October 1, 2025. That is more than three years of daily violations, each one technically a separate chargeable offense. The EPA resolved all of it for $30,000 (about what a family of four spends on groceries over two and a half years).

Straight From the Document They Signed

These are direct, verbatim passages from the EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order. These are not paraphrases. This is what the federal government put in writing.

“Commencing on or about March 20, 2022, to April 15, 2022, Respondent, and/or those acting on behalf of the Respondent, discharged dredged and/or fill material into jurisdictional waters within the Discharge Area without a permit under Section 404 of the CWA…using earth moving machinery including, but not limited to, backhoes, bulldozers, and dump trucks to construct a new retail store and attendant features, such as a parking lot, ingress/egress roads, and utilities. Currently, the unauthorized dredged and/or fill material remains in waters of the United States.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section IV, Finding of Fact No. 16

“Respondent’s unauthorized activities in the Discharge Area impacted approximately 1.265 acres of wetlands with a continuous surface connection to Cane Creek, which is a relatively permanent perennial tributary to Kelly Creek, which is a relatively permanent perennial tributary of the Coosa River, a traditional navigable water.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section IV, Finding of Fact No. 17

“Each day the material discharged by the Respondent remains in waters of the United States without the required permit under Section 404 of the CWA…constitutes a day of violation of Section 301(a) of the CWA.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section V, Alleged Violation No. 33

“Respondent stated in its April 7, 2023, responses to the Information Request that its contractor operated earth moving machinery, such as backhoes, bulldozers, and dump trucks, for earth moving and depositing dredged and/or fill material at the Site.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section IV, Finding of Fact No. 25

“Respondent: (b) neither admits nor denies the factual allegations set forth in Section IV (Findings of Facts) of this CAFO; (c) consents to the assessment of a civil penalty…in the amount of $30,000.00.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Section VI, Stipulations No. 35

A Fine That Fits in a Briefcase

Who Actually Pays When a Wetland Dies

Environmental Degradation: A River System Took the Hit

The destroyed wetland did not exist in isolation. The EPA’s own findings confirm it had “a continuous surface connection to Cane Creek,” which feeds Kelly Creek, which feeds the Coosa River. The Coosa River is a major Alabama waterway that passes through communities across the state, supporting fishing, recreation, and municipal water systems. When a developer fills a connected wetland without a permit, every body of water downstream absorbs the consequences of that decision.

Wetlands function as natural filtration systems, removing sediment, excess nutrients, and pollutants before they reach creeks and rivers. The Broadway Group’s contractors deposited dredged and fill material — earthen debris from construction — directly into this filter. The fill material is still there. As of the signing of this consent order on October 1, 2025, more than three years after the initial destruction, no remediation or restoration has been ordered. The Coosa River watershed is permanently shorter one natural buffer zone.

The site sits at the corner of Highway 78 and Mountain Top Loop in Cook Springs, St. Clair County. This is rural Alabama. The people downstream from this site are not protected by layers of municipal water treatment infrastructure the way a major city might be. A functioning wetland connected to their local creek system is not an abstraction — it is part of the water system they live with every day.

Economic Inequality: The Price of a Wetland Is Whatever They Can Get Away With

The Broadway Group faced a maximum potential civil penalty under the cited Clean Water Act provision of $25,000 per day per violation. The unauthorized discharge ran from approximately March 20 to April 15, 2022 — a span of 26 days. Even at the statutory daily rate, the potential liability was enormous. The company settled for $30,000 ($30,000 — enough to buy a mid-range used car, but not enough to fund two months of wetland restoration work by a professional ecological contractor).

This math communicates a precise message to every real estate developer in the southeastern United States: the cost of skipping the permit process and filling a federally protected wetland is, at worst, a modest fine that almost certainly costs less than the permit process itself. The system does not deter this conduct. It prices it.

Meanwhile, the residents of Cook Springs have no mechanism to bill The Broadway Group for the lost flood absorption, the degraded water quality downstream, or the habitat gone from their local watershed. The people who live near that wetland carry the cost. The developer carries a $30,000 line item and a Dollar General lease.

What You Can Do With This Information

The Broadway Group is a continuing legal entity. Robert M. Broadway, its listed member, remains the principal. The consent order explicitly states it “constitutes an enforcement action for purposes of considering Respondent’s compliance history in any subsequent enforcement actions.” Future violations will be judged against this record.

The Corporate Principals on Record

• Robert M. Broadway — Listed Member, The Broadway Group, LLC. P.O. Box 18968, Huntsville, AL 35804. Signatory to this consent agreement.
• Keriema S. Newman — Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, EPA Region 4. Signed off on this settlement on behalf of the federal government.

What Accountability Looks Like From the Ground Up

If you live in St. Clair County or along the Coosa River watershed, connect with local watershed alliances, creek monitoring groups, and Alabama environmental advocacy organizations. The public comment process for permits is real — use it. When developers file after-the-fact permits in your community, submit comments during the public notice window. The EPA must consider them. Your voice in that process is one of the few levers the law actually gives you, so pull it every single time.